Little Tea Shop

69 Monroe, Memphis, TN - (901) 525-6000

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Posted By Michael Stern on December 5, 2005 4:20 AM

We love the do-it-yourself ordering process at the Little Tea Shop. Every customer gets a one-page printed menu of the day – there is a different menu for each day of the week – with a little box next to each item. Like voting with an old-fashioned ballot, you put a check mark in the box next to each dish you want to elect for your lunch.

We cannot help but vote for the everyday Tea Shop special of turnip greens. These are very serious greens, whole-leaf heaps of heavy vegetable goodness, soft and dark green, with a commanding tonic flavor. They are served with corn sticks on the side; a common custom is to crumble the corn into the greens as one eats.

Many of the downtown crowd who have made the Little Tea Shop their mid-day home for decades come to eat nothing more than a chicken salad sandwich, but if you are looking for a (non-barbecue) taste of Memphis, look to the top of the menu for such once-a-week treats as fried chicken on Tuesday, chicken and dressing Wednesday, and fried catfish Friday. Good as such entrees are, it’s the vegetables on the side that send our tastebuds into orbit: creamed potatoes or sliced candied yams, fried corn, baked squash, black-eyed peas, or scalloped tomatoes … plus, of course, those lovely little corn sticks to munch alongside.

The dessert list is short and wonderful: apple cobbler, cobbler with ice cream or – our choice – a frozen pecan ball with hot fudge. The latter is all of $2.95; even with it, you’ll have a hard time spending more than $10 for lunch at the Little Tea Shop.

Overall Rating

Turnip Greens

corn sticks

Pecan Ball

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